


Defiance. Freedom.

by Dreaming_in_Circles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, CA:TWS spoilers, Cold War, F/M, I have no idea what else to tag for, Minor Character Death, Momentary torture, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1497442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreaming_in_Circles/pseuds/Dreaming_in_Circles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She asked the questions he was afraid to. She also gave him the courage to find the answers. </p><p> </p><p>Just something that wouldn't get out of my head until I wrote it down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defiance. Freedom.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, not Beta'd, so sorry 'bout that. I seriously didn't know how to tag this, so sorry 'bout that, too.  
> I don't know if 'nerdy' is a 1940s word, but I'm pretending it is.

He opened his eyes to cold air. The breath going in and out of his lungs was stinging cold. The place on his shoulder and hip where metal met skin was achey and sore. This was familiar, though. 

Men in white lab coats and black bow ties were scattered throughout the room. They had blond hair and blue eyes and were forever nervous and edgy. He laughed at them, silently, behind their backs, for their nerdy-ness and weakness. Other men, dressed in military uniforms or poorly-made black suits, were standing in between. The ones in suits had guns concealed beneath the jackets, their forced calm and bland expressions not fooling him for a second. He laughed at them, too; for their arrogance. 

He stepped out of the cold metal box he was in, and the tile was warm compared to his body temperature. The scientists poked and prodded and measured and hemmed and hawed and worried, and he ignored it all, silently laughing. Then they let him go, and he got dressed. A t-shirt, military jacket, cargo pants, all black. Combat boots sat next to the pile of clothes, and he drops them on the floor and stuffs his feet into them, but doesn't lace them up. 

Weapons were on the other side of the table, and he reached for them immediately. The tension in the room spiked a palpable amount, and the rustling of clothing caused him to turn. Every man wearing a suit stood with his hand on his weapon. He froze and looked to the scientists, who looked even more nervous than before. He waited for orders, not moving a muscle; if they wanted to play this game, so be it.

A minute passed; the two. The tension only grew as he waited for orders and the suits waited for him to do something. Finally, "Continue." One of the men in the uniforms ordered him. He turned away from the group - indifferent - and packed the weapons onto his stocky frame. Knives, and a sniper rifle; what he knew. Only when he was done with this did he stoop to lace his boots.

Two days later he'd killed his first target and was moving onto his second one. The first one was Russian; this time he was American. He was in Russia on a business trip - not that _they'd_ ever tell him that. He did his own research.

He was in the building across from the hotel, waiting for the man to come out for his evening appointment. It should be any minute.

And there he was. The strong jaw and confident expression unmistakable. He had blond hair, and clear blue eyes, and fine features-

_Bucky!_

He spun around quickly, eyes searching the abandoned building for the source of the voice. His knife was in his hand before he could give it conscious thought, ready to throw at the bastard who snuck up on him. 

But the room was empty, save for him. The weak light that filtered through the boarded windows showed no other living being in room. He frowned, then whipped his head back to look through the scope. The man was already in his car; there was no way he could get him now.

"You missed?" The man in the uniform asked. He was back in the room he woke up in. Just him and the man in the uniform.

"I didn't fire." He said. He didn't understand what was going on.

"Why not?" Then man asked, moving to stand behind him.

"I- I don't know."

"Not good enough." The man snapped, grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanking. His head was jerked back, painfully, and he reached up with his metal arm and pressed his fingers into the officer's wrist. It was instinct, but he didn't stop. He squeezed, heard the officer grunt in pain, heard the sound of bones shattering.

The officer's hand released and he shoved the man back. He stood quickly, spinning to face him. 

_Bucky! Oh my god. It's me, it's Steve._

His eyes were wide, his breathing heavy. "What's happening to me?"

"Why are you resisting?" The officer gasped, gripping his wrist, anger in his voice. "Is this an act of defiance?"

"What?" He snapped back. No; he just wanted to understand what was happening to him.

The door behind him opened, and he turned to see the men in suits come in first, followed by the scientists. 

"Prep him, and wipe him." The officer said. He turned go look back at him. Then people were grabbing his arms, intentionally tripping him and slamming him into a chair, tying his arms down. He bucked, trying to get out, but they were holding him down. Two plates came down over his head, something stared humming, and **_pain._**

\--------------------------

She burned the whole damn hospital. The whole thing. Just to cause a panic so he could get a shot at the target. That was cold.

But, hey, it worked. The target was lying in the snow, a puddle of red pouring out of a hole in his head. And he'd put it there.

Still, though, the whole goddamn hospital. A _children's_ hospital, nonetheless. That was really cold. He was impressed.

The next time they worked together, he actually got to meet her. Lean, young, with bright red hair, she didn't _look_ like a world-class assassin. He didn't tell her that. 

Their target is a Russian politician named Drakov. They're supposed to sneak in together and kill him - either one of them, but getting in was a two-man op.

Working with her was refreshing. She was as professional and as capable as him and could keep up physically and mentally with ease; he even learned a thing or two as they slipped by the politician's security. It was laughable, really, how easy the op was; how easy they made it.

The man was having a long, heartfelt conversation with his daughter when they arrived at his room. They were hiding in the air ducts, and couldn't move in until the girl left. She appeared to be a teenager, maybe fourteen or fifteen with red hair, and he wondered what was so goddamn important that it couldn't wait until morning.

"What do they call you?" She had whispered to him in the weak light filtering into the duct. They were pressed against each other in the warm vent; both of them hot and sweaty.

"Winter Soldier." He had breathed back after a moment. No one had ever asked before. "You?"

"Black Widow." She said, and squirmed a little against him to get comfortable. "We're going to be here awhile; she's crying again."

He turned to look at the girl and saw Widow was right. He released a frustrated sigh and allowed his muscles to relax; no point in allowing them to cramp.

"What happened to your arm, Soldier?" She asked, thin fingers snaking under his sleeve to travel to his metal elbow.

"I don't know." He replied honestly. He couldn't remember. Hell, he could barely remember last week, let alone the years ago that he lost his arm.

She looked up at him, eyes tracking over his face, looking for the lie, trying to see why he didn't want to tell her. When she couldn't find what she was looking for, her face fell to a frown.

"How old are you?" He asked. The conversation was beyond forbidden, he knew, but somehow it felt okay anyway.

She let go one of her strange, sad smiles. "Twenty-one. How much trouble do you think we're going to get in?"

He cracked a crooked grin, which also felt natural. "None, unless they find out." He looked back out over the family. The girl was being cuddled by her father, and had finally stopped crying. His muscles tensed in anticipation. 

"Oh, we're not going anywhere any time soon." Widow said, craning her neck to see what had him so excited, then relaxing again. "They're about half-way through their conversation."

He frowned at her - how did she know, anyway - and threw his head back to check the time. "We've only got two hours left before we have to be at the rendezvous. They've got to wrap this up soon or we're going to run out of time."

"Do you ever wonder why they put a time limit on us?" She asked suddenly, as if she'd ignored his whole point. "I mean, what are they so afraid of?"

"They don't want us to leave." The answer was obvious to him. All that security where he was kept; it could be nothing else.

"It's like they don't trust us." She mused even more quietly. 

"They don't." He responded easily, looking back at the family, his thoughts focused on the mission.

"But why not? We've never given them reason to doubt us; why shouldn't they allow us a little freedom?" He turned his head and looked at her more closely. He'd honestly never wondered that, but - logically - it made sense. But surely there was some missing variable, something they didn't see, or else it would be true. 

"I don't like where this conversation is going." He said flatly, hoping that would end it. But the Widow had different ideas.

"Exactly! What's so bad about us making our own choices?" She nudged him as if to make her point. He grimaced, all his muscles tightening nervously. She saw her advantage - or felt it, rather - and took it. "Come on; think about it. How bad would it be if we actually thought for ourselves a little, huh? I've met people who are practically robots-"

He grabbed her shoulder and used his body to press her against the other side of the duct, hard but silent. He knew his metal hand would leave bruises, but if it helped make his point, so be it.

"You need to stop asking these questions!" He hissed angrily in her ear. "If you really knew what you were doing, you'd know that. So stop."

"Why?"

Her voice held as much defiance as his did anger, and as much as it scared him - as much as he knew it was wrong - some part of him was drawn to that. Defiance... Freedom... Those words rattled around in his brain. He pushed back from her, a frown on his face. 

She looked at him hopefully, then her face fell and she turned back to watch the target. He assumed he looked more angry than confused, though he felt roughly equal parts of both. He followed her line of sight to the target. The daughter was still there, and didn't look like she'd be going anywhere soon.

"We should go now." She said, and just like that the whole conversation was forgotten, apparently. He shook his head to focus his thoughts then nodded. 

In the end, he slit Drakov's throat and she took care of the teenager. She hovered over the body for far too long, and he could see it really bothered her. And, just a little, he started to wonder if there really was a problem here, with them, with the system. 

Defiance. Freedom. 

Those words meant things to him; wrong, danger, stop, pain. But somewhere distant in his head, if he tried - and, oh, he tried as he watched her grieve the death of the girl - he remembered he'd felt _defiance_ before. He'd fought wars in the name of _freedom._

They always said he was shaping the century. It might be kind of interesting to see what he was turning it into. That came with _freedom._ It would be an act of _defiance._

It was surprisingly tempting.

They left the politician's mansion and by unspoken agreement watched as first the police, and then the ambulances, arrived the next morning. They watched as two bodies were carried out in black bags, nameless, faceless, soon to be forgotten by the world. They missed the rendezvous.

He watched the Widow carefully, and didn't miss the single tear she shed. Twenty-one, and she burned the whole damn hospital.

When she turned away and looked at him and said "Let's go somewhere," he took her to a black market hole in the city and they stole some warm rolls and cold vodka. They sat on the roof of the warehouse and ate in silence, watching as the city struggled to life. Cars roamed about, heaters roared to life, smoke curled out of chimneys. 

"It's always so fuckin' cold." He muttered, downing a swallow of liquor and wrapping his chilled fingers around a warm roll. She looked at him then, for a long time, and he pretended not to notice. 

Finally, "Do you want to leave?"

Leave them, leave the missions, leave the death, leave the control. Did he want to leave? _What you're really asking,_ he thought, _is do I want to be_ free.

"Yes."

They finished the rolls and vodka, stood, brushed themselves off, and left. The walked. For miles. To the other side of the city, where the train yard was. They picked one at random and jumped aboard as it roared by. The car they picked was carrying clothing - pants, boots, coats - and they stripped out of their jumpsuits into civilian clothing. 

They kept the door open, watching as the world passed by, both fascinated with the reality that had surrounded them but they'd never been able to participate in. They sat cross-legged in front of it when they'd changed, his arm around her slim shoulders as they watched proud mountains, great valleys, and angry rivers rush by. It felt natural.

They travelled around Russia in this manner for weeks. He quickly lost track of how long it had been since they'd left. It was the longest he'd stayed unfrozen in one stretch - perhaps forever. They stole food, vodka, and newspapers, slowly learning about the world they'd been so long denied. 

Places like _America_ and _Britain_ sounded familiar, but he couldn't drag up a picture of them.

After that night, the Widow went back to her usual self: confident, flirty, wicked dangerous. They fit together nicely, insults bouncing easily off each other's shells. He supposed in another life they might have been flirting. It was only a little surprising when she kissed him one night in a warehouse in Volgograd. He didn't stop her. 

Nothing really changed after that night: their lives had already depended on each other, now they could just put a name to their relationship if they wanted. But they both knew it didn't quite work that way, and so they continued in the enforced ambiguity. It worked for them. 

Eventually they made their way out of Russia, through Ukraine. She asked if that country was familiar and he told her 'no.' He asked her if she'd ever been outside Russia before and she said 'only on missions.' Their questions usually operated on a fair-trade system: both were completely honest as long as all questions were answered. It was one of their many unspoken agreements.

In Luhansk he asked her why she'd trusted him to go with her. She'd pressed herself closer to him. "Because you swear. I've worked with guys who are just mindless drones from years of torture and brainwashing. But you're not; you're still human and I knew after you stayed with me that you felt the way I did."

"I could be pretending, to get you to trust me."

"Then I'd be dead already, and you wouldn't have had sex with me." She looked up at him, that coy smile on her face, and he smiled back and kissed her.

They tried to go north to Poland, but he recognized someone at the border and nearly panicked. Or did panic; he wasn't sure, he had nothing to compare it to. She tried to get them out of it, but he fucked it up and the guards saw them. They were taken into an interrogation room, where he was finally able to pull it together. He wanted to apologize, he had no idea what had just happened, but he knew he had to wait.

The man walked in, a crooked smile on his face, a cell phone in his hand. "Finally found the asset." He muttered to himself, eyes locked on him. He put the phone to his ear and turned partially away from them. The Widow kicked the metal table, sending it skidding across the room to slam into his legs mid-thigh. He ripped the handcuffs out of the chair with his metal arm and ran across the room, killing the man before he could make any noise. 

He snapped the cuff off his right wrist, but his flesh hand wasn't strong enough to pull it off his left. He snapped her cuffs too, and she grabbed guard's gun. He'd thought about taking it, but let her have it; he'd already fucked things up enough.

They snuck out of the room miraculously without being seen and exited through a back door, disappearing into the woods along the border. In a hotel room in Chervonohrad she finally asked. 

"I don't know what happened." He whispered in the dark, arms wrapped tight around her waist. "I just- I knew him. And I knew I was in so much trouble, I knew they were going to..." He huffed a breath. "Hurt me."

She snuggled back against his chest, and he pressed his face into her shoulder. He decided he didn't like the feeling 'panic.' He wasn't going to do that again; it didn't get them anywhere.

They went south this time, towards Serbia. That area was unstable, which made it a good place to hide. For most visitors it would be dangerous, she had remarked once they put a destination to their movements. When we get there, it's locals who need to look out, he had quipped back, and she smiled, just a little.

The Romanian border was easier. He didn't recognize anyone and they went in the middle of the night, the blinding lights alternating with the complete darkness to effectively hide their secrets. The guards were bored and tired, nearing the end of their shift, and let them through with only a cursory glance.

Big cites were their lifeline. The easiest place to disappear was with a million other people. They finally stole a car near Oradea, tired of walking and hitchhiking and jumping onto trains. It was much faster.

"Do you have a real name?" She asked in Arad.

"No." He flexed the fingers of his flesh hand uneasily. "Do you?"

"Natalia, but I don't like it." She said. 

"You don't like the way it sounds?"

"Partly; it's too Russian, and I don't want to be that anymore. Too many bad memories." She took another drink of vodka, staring at the horizon. 

"Natasha." He said suddenly and she turned her head to look at him. "It's similar, but more Western."

She looked back out at the city. "Natasha." She repeated, and smiled, just a little. "Natasha Romanov."

He smiled and took the vodka bottle from her. "To Natasha."

Getting across the Serbian border was easy. They ditched the car and didn't go to a crossing, but snuck their way past border guards on a moonless night. It was the easiest thing in the world for a couple of ex-assassins. 

Serbia was rough country, but they soon got a reputation as tough in their own right. Tough enough that no one wanted to mess with the two Russians hiking cross-country. They labored in a false sense of security this way, not realizing that having a rep meant they were no longer invisible.

The soldiers came in the dark, well past midnight. They were quiet, much quieter than Serbian rebels, and both of them were wide awake immediately, lying on the ground next to each other plotting a plan of attack with mere looks.

When they came, they tried to get close to him, a needle in hand. When they were within arm's reach, he lashed out, slamming the lead's head into a rock, and then it was a free-for-all. They were good, but he was better, but they had numbers. And guns; they may have wanted to take him alive, but clearly were not against killing him if they had to.

They were good enough that killing them took time, and as more and more swarmed from the woods, time was something he didn't have. They slammed him to the ground, bleeding and broken, half a dozen men holding down his metal arm and leg. They stabbed a needle into his shoulder, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her run away, unseen and forgotten. 

"You really had us going, Solder." One of the attackers said, his accent American. "Leading us around in circles. A year's a long time to hide from us."

He kept his eyes open until his vision blacked out.


End file.
